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The God Who Acts: Robert John Russell on Divine Intervention and Divine Action, Part 2

This series presents Robert John Russell’s view of how God is at work in what we have called the “ordinary processes” of the world—how God acts in the areas of creation that are commonly explored through the natural sciences. While Russell argues that God does miraculously act in human history (most importantly in the bodily resurrection of Jesus), here the focus is divine action that occurs in and through the natural laws that God himself ordains, even when those processes and events appear “random” to us.

In Part 1 of our series, we introduced the multiple meanings today’s Christians associate with the word intervention, and shared Russell’s description of how views of divine action have changed throughout history. Today’s Part 2 is BioLogos Associate Editor Tom Burnett’s concise synthesis of ideas that Russell presents in chapter 4 of his bookCosmology: From Alpha to Omega. The idea of “supernatural intervention” that developed during the Enlightenment distorts a biblical understanding of divine action. It does so by implying that God is absent in ordinary natural processes, and that divine action is restricted to "interventions" that violate trustworthy laws.

“Supernatural Intervention” was invented during the Enlightenment

The Newtonian worldview introduced during the Enlightenment (and famously promoted by Laplace) proposed a fully mechanistic universe in which all phenomena are rigidly determined by natural laws. If this were true, then theology would be left with two possible scenarios:

Scenario 1. God really acts in nature, but in order to do so, God must suspend natural laws and intervene in a supernatural way.

Scenario 2. God only appears to be acting in what are in fact the ordinary processes of nature, but in actuality does not act in either a special or objective way.

As the Enlightenment worldview became popular, conservatives adopted scenario 1—God's actions are interventionist and supernatural, whereas purely natural processes operate independently of God. Liberals, on the other hand, generally opted for scenario 2—all phenomena are a result of natural laws describable by science, and God’s actions are purely subjective—merely in the minds of believers and not in objective reality (see Russell’s description of Schleiermacher in the previous post).

Today, nearly three hundred years later, most people still unquestioningly accept this intellectual framework and assume there is no alternative to these two scenarios.

Interventionism relies on old, outdated science

Beginning in the 20th century, the account of the world provided by the natural sciences progressed beyond being a set of rigidly deterministic natural laws that could infallibly predict all future events. Instead, much of current fundamental science depends on laws that are statistical and probabilistic, predicting with high degrees of accuracy, but unable to describe (much less dictate) what must be the case in every instance. Speaking of this in-built indeterminacy, Russell maintains,

If this surmise is correct, it would mean that the presence of statistics in the mathematics of these fields does not arise from our ignorance of the underlying deterministic forces but from the fact that there are, in reality, no sufficient underlying forces or causes to fully determine particular physical processes, events, or outcomes. Scholars call this view of chance “ontological indeterminism” to distinguish it from chance as mere “epistemic ignorance”.

In this scenario, one cannot “exclude” God from the universe by appealing to pre-determined natural laws. Simply put, the illusion of absolute scientific certainty collapsed with the discovery of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics opens up space for a philosophical and theological interpretation of nature that moves beyond the rigid causal determinism of Enlightenment physics. Thus contemporary Christians do not have to continually appeal to an interventionist God that must intrude into a completely determined, practically godless system of natural law. This is because, in light of our best current science, such a deterministic causally-closed system of natural laws is not an accurate description of physical reality. As early quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger explained, “physical laws rest on atomic statistics and are therefore only approximate.” From a theological perspective, then, it would appear that God built into the cosmos probabilistic processes over which he is in complete control, but which we can not (rather than merely do not) have specific predictive knowledge.

But besides being dependent on outdated science, the continued use of the Enlightenment approach to divine action is also theologically flawed: “supernatural intervention” acknowledges God's transcendence but devalues God's immanence. Indeed, if intervention is taken to mean that God ordinarily stands apart from creation and human history, and only occasionally enters into direct relationship with it, then it is a concept foreign to the character of God as depicted in the Bible. In scripture, God is everywhere and always present, always knowing and always acting. The regular courses of the sun, moon and stars, the regularity of the seasons, and even meteorological phenomena like wind, rain, and lightning are seen as exemplifying the continuous action of God in and through the natural world (Job 38; Prov. 8:29; Ps. 148:1-12; Jer. 31:35; 33:20). There aren’t anyphenomena that proceed completely independently of God. Therefore, God does not have to intervene as if from “outside” the physical creation because the triune God is already sustaining and governing all of creation. Thus Russell is confident in rejecting scenario 1 (God acts in nature by suspending natural laws) and maintaining that this ordinary kind of divine action is non-interventionist.

Divine action is an objective reality

Turning our attention from the conservative interpretation of divine action to the liberal one (scenario 2), Russell rejects this interpretation as well. God does not only appear to act in the world, God does in fact act in the world. Divine action is not just a subjective phenomenon experienced by humans (i.e. those who have faith). Rather, whenever God acts in a particular circumstance it is an objective event, not reducible to subjective human experience:

An objective act of God might involve a medical healing, being saved from a near disaster, or a sudden inspiration that leads one to decisive an unanticipated action. Such events would not have occurred without God acting in some distinctive way in relation to them. Our attribution of meaning and intentionality to God in relation to them is, or at least might be, based on our response to what God is actually doing in and through these events. We might be wrong (in some cases) in calling them an objective act of God but we are not wrong in employing the category of objective divine action to claim theologically that that God can act in extraordinary ways in the world. (p.121)

Because human judgment and interpretation are subject to error, it may be difficult to discern whether a particular event is a direct act of God. In this way the objective divine acts of God may still be hidden from the eyes unaided by faith (c.f. Psalm 77:14-20). But despite our limited abilities to perceive the subtle details of divine action, we can still confidently conclude that God is free to act in decisive ways to bring about his purposes and goals, both in the lives of individual humans and for the world as a whole.

Non-Interventionist Objective Divine Action (NIODA)

By embracing the objective reality of divine action in the world, but also recognizing the theological problems associated with “intervention”, Russell proposes a theory of non-interventionist, objective divine action (NIODA). Though it is a mouthful to say, NIODA is not nearly as complicated as it sounds. As we saw above, God's involvement in the world is non-interventionist in so far as he does not have to suspend natural laws in order to act (natural laws, after all, are themselves a description of God’s will for and action in the world). God's activities are also objective in the sense that they are not just a figment of human imagination. God truly acts in powerful ways, both in the natural world and in the lives of humans. This leads Russell to proclaim,

We can credibly believe that God really did do what the Bible testifies to, and we may in the process begin to overcome one of the basic reasons for the split between theological liberals and conservatives. (p. 112)

This split is often perceived as a conflict over science, but at a more fundamental level, it is a misunderstanding of the nature of divine action. As we have seen, the concept of “supernatural intervention” was a product of the Enlightenment, and it has created a false dichotomy between natural science and Christian faith.

But this has not always been the case, and Russell points out that until recently, Christians have thought quite differently:

Rather than seeing divine acts as occasional events in what are otherwise entirely natural and historical processes, both the Hebrews and the early Christians conceived of God as the creator of the world and of divine action as the continuing basis of all that happens in nature and in history. (p. 112-13)

Divine action is not limited to the original creation of the universe ex nihilo and supernatural interventions; instead, God is continuously involved in directing and developing the cosmos. The early church called this process creatio continua. The effects of ongoing, consistent divine action in nature (i.e. general providence) are best understood through natural laws and theories developed by scientists; not only that, but scientists need not demand instances when natural laws are suspended or overturned in order to recognize God’s action. Yet as we shall see in part 3 of our series, God’s general providence—when understood as NIODA—does not undermine the reality of special providence, the miracles of the Bible, or the efficacy of prayer.

Notes

Citations

Russell, Robert John. "The God Who Acts: Robert John Russell on Divine Intervention and Divine Action, Part 2"https://biologos.org/. N.p., 24 May. 2012. Web. 19 March 2018.

APA

Russell, R. (2012, May 24). The God Who Acts: Robert John Russell on Divine Intervention and Divine Action, Part 2Retrieved March 19, 2018, from /blogs/archive/the-god-who-acts-part-2

About the Author

Robert John Russell is the Founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), and the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), Berkeley. He holds a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an M.Div. and an M. A. in theology and science from the Pacific School of Religion (one of nine seminaries in the GTU consortium), an M. S. in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he triple-majored in physics, religion and music at Stanford University. He is ordained in the United Church of Christ and is a member of the Society of Ordained Scientists. Russell is also the author of Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: Towards the Mutual Creative Interaction of Theology and Science (Fortress Press, 2008). He has co-edited a multi-volume series of books focused on scientific perspectives on divine action through an international research conference program co-sponsored by CTNS and the Vatican Observatory, including such topics as quantum mechanics, chaos theory, evolutionary and molecular biology, the neurosciences, and quantum cosmology.

"What kind of evidence would somebody need to have in order to be rationally compelled to say that an event was a miracle? That person would have to know that this event could not possibly be explained by future science. But not only is such a belief unwarranted, it’s also bad for future science to believe it."

These provocative words are written by Princeton philosopher Hans Halvorson (a Christian), in an article that itself provoked some good discussion when we posted it last week.

Check out the full article (link in comments), and then respond to the quote above. Does calling something a "miracle" put it in danger of being debunked by future scientific advances? Is there a different way of thinking about the concept of a miracle, that might satisfy his concerns? Feel free to discuss below. ... See moreSee less

Hard for me to see that the Incarnation is not a miracle. For others , God could be working on a quantum level?? But does the latter fall into”God of the Gaps?”

5 hours ago · 1

Amen🌀 Jesus doesn't care about Alabama Crimson Tide 🏈 football. Instead, He loves 🌀 Spring and the start of ⚾ baseball season. That's why He started His own story, "In the Big inning..." Just watch 🌀 His wind-up! You need to start reading your 📖 Bible!

3 hours ago

One thing for sure, it is more a philosophical question than a religious one.

7 hours ago · 2

Great article. In answer to you question about a different way of thinking about miracles that would "satisfy his concern", to me it would make sense to explain a miracle in terms of something that everyone (religious and non-religious alike) would have no explanation for, given our current understanding of science.

Science will never describe the full expanse of reality. Science is not geared to that end. This is basic knowledge.
Reason is the handmaiden of faith because faith takes us where reason cannot go. As such, the only thing that will ever describe the fill expanse of reality is faith supernaturally given by God, i.e. God graciously enlightening the intellect. Reason gives way to faith because reason is limited in its capacity to describe reality.
This is not to say reason is not essential. It is the handmaiden of faith because it is a true and good servant to faith. As such faith and reason never contradict, but faith does transcend reason.

10 hours ago · 5

I'm tired of these types of questions constantly being proposed. It was not a scientist who discovered that dead human beings do not rise from the dead (which is different than Jesus resurrection) it was simple human experience. Therefore, the question is rather silly to ask. My first reply is to ask: who cares if Jesus resurrection contradicts science? My second reply is to make the observation that this question is phrased in such a way that science is presupposed as the final arbiter of truth claims like the resurrection of Jesus. Thirdly, how exactly could scientists study the resurrection of Jesus? Scripture tells us that God raised Jesus from the dead. Can science study this claim? Fourth, it would be one thing to subject the resurrection to some sort of scientific investigation ( I know not what or how) and a completely different thing to study what the resurrection of Jesus means for me or you personally. It seems Biologos is in need of some good theologians and philosophers to add to this conversation. Finally, this question smacks of a form of Evidentialism that would make faith subject to the vagarities of evidence. In the end I have to affirm that it matters little to me if the resurrection of Jesus did contradict science. On another note, one could ask: whose "science" and which scientists?

3 hours ago · 1

Exactly so.

11 hours ago · 1

Mmmmmm, I would say that a resurrection is contradictory to observed evidence, but that's fine. A God that is truly supernatural would act supernaturally at times. Although, I suppose God could whip up a truly natural Star Trek hypospray to overcome the decay process and relaunch the body's systems.